Spiritual Practices
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Quotes

Deep within each of us is the urge to know and to be known. It is as central to the core of our being as is the urge to dance in the sunshine or cry at weddings or sing in the shower or laugh at children or fall backward into the snow.
— Robert Benson in Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

Our God dwells within us and
the only way we can become
one with our God is to become
one with our authentic self.
— Maurice Blondel quoted in Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair by John McNeill

Be yourself today. Just be it. Without explanations or definitions. Take notice of the person you are.
— Terry Bookman in The Busy Soul

A thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still, which doesn't mean we don't run and jump and dance about. It means there's no compulsiveness. We don't overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce. In short, we begin to stop causing harm.
— Pema Chödrön in When Things Fall Apart

The imagery of inviting all parts of ourselves home, back to the table, like the prodigal son lies at the heart of the Aramaic sense of what it means to be perfect.
— Neil Douglas-Klotz in The Hidden Gospel

I find another kind of answer in the prayer, "Keep me friendly to myself, keep me gentle in disappointment."
— John S. Dunne in The Music of Time

The best way to know God is to be like God.
— St. Gregory of Nyssa quoted in Rummaging for God by Melannie Svoboda

Everything on the outside is only reminding us of what we are inside.
— Kabir Helminski in The Knowing Heart

This is a very important practice. Live your daily life in a way that you never lose yourself. When you are carried away with your worries, fears, cravings, anger, and desire, you run away from yourself and you lose yourself. The practice is always to go back to oneself.
— Thich Nhat Hanh in Going Home

Follow the grain in your own wood.
— Howard Thurman quoted in To Love and Be Loved by Sam Keen

No punishment could be worse than the one we inflict on ourselves by living a divided life.
— Parker Palmer quoted in Soul of a Citizen by Paul Rogat Loeb

Therefore what we need to be reminded of is that just as the voice of the singer Caruso has been retrieved by modern-day technicians from the distortion of old recordings, so, too, is it possible to recover the memory of our true self.
— Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan in Awakening: A Sufi Experience

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Be one yourself!
— Marcus Aurelius quoted in The Inner Treasureby Jonathan Star

Come now, noble souls, and take a look at the splendor you are carrying within yourselves! But if you do not let go of yourself completely, if you do not drown yourself in this bottomless sea of the Godhead, you cannot get to know this divine light.
— Meister Eckhart quoted in The Inner Treasureby Jonathan Star

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.
— Rollo May quoted in The Soul of Creativityedited by Tona Pearce Myers

A great deal of chaos in the world occurs because people don't appreciate themselves. Having never developed sympathy or gentleness toward themselves, they cannot experience harmony or peace within themselves, and therefore, what they project to others is also inharmonious and confused.
— Chogyam Trungpa quoted in The Essential Chogyam Trungpa edited by Carolyn Rose Gimian

Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves.
— Saint Francis quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub